PRIME Minister Sergei Stanishev says he is confident Bulgaria can make serious progress in the next six months in overcoming major deficiencies listed in a landmark European Commission report on the country's preparations to join the European Union.

Speaking on October 26 after being handed the report by Dimitris Kourkoulas, head of the EC delegation in Bulgaria, Stanishev said that the verdict of the report was "even better than we expected".

Assessing Bulgaria's progress in dealing with 29 chapters of the accession process, the EC listed five as requiring urgent and serious attention.

These were freedom to provide services, company law, agriculture, justice and home affairs - specifically including a failure to effectively deal with organised crime and corruption - and regional policy.

"The Government accepts the EC as our guiding partner," Stanishev said.

The next landmark will be in April or May, when the European Council meets to decide whether to allow Bulgaria and Romania to join the EU as planned on January 1 2007. Stanishev said that he was confident Bulgaria could make serious progress in the next six months.

Kourkoulas said the EC was optimistic that Bulgaria could meet all the requirements on time to join the EU as scheduled.

Speaking at an October 25 news conference for the release of the EC report, Kourkoulas said: "We don't expect the impossible, because there is no EU country without corruption and organised crime".

But, he said, the EC required from Bulgaria "facts, deeds and results," not only political will.

"We expect the criminals to be sent to jail," he said.

According to the report, serious concern arose from the high level of corruption, the lack of effective combating of organised crime, lax control of external borders, intellectual property piracy and counterfeiting, low or lack of food and veterinary safety standards, the absence of institutions for redistribution of EU funds and the high number of motor vehicles without third-party liability insurance.

There existed "a number of areas of serious concern requiring immediate action from Bulgaria so that it may reap the benefit from EU accession but also in order to preserve the balance of the Union," the report said. "The Bulgarian authorities are strongly encouraged to spare no efforts to remedy the existing gaps without further delay."

The report said that further efforts were needed in the areas of transport safety, industrial pollution, environment legislation and refuse management; visa policies, money laundering, social inclusion of the minorities and the disadvantaged, and anti-discrimination policies, to name a few.

It said that there were also areas where Bulgaria was ready or where preparations were ongoing and which should be resolved by accession if the current pace of preparations were maintained. "These include, for example, competition policy, the free movement of capital and payments, and culture and audio-visual policy," the report said.

According to it, Bulgaria continued to be a functioning market economy.

"The continuation of the current pace of its reform path should enable Bulgaria to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union. Bulgaria has maintained a high degree of macro-economic stability with strong economic growth, relatively low inflation and falling unemployment," it said. "However, in particular the business environment still needs further improvement."

Another cause for concern was the still-high external deficit.

As expected, the EC report did not give a specific date for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, but hinted that the two countries might be admitted to the EU at different times.

Addressing the European parliament, European enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn said that in the spring of 2006 there would be new reports on the two countries.

"In spring 2006, we will review the situation and we may recommend, if needed, to postpone accession by one year," he said. "We of course hope that steps undertaken by both countries will lead us to conclude that such a recommendation is not necessary."

European Integration Minister Meglena Kouneva said that much work was required from her colleagues Interior Minister Roumen Petkov, Justice Minister Georgi Petkanov, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Nihat Kabil and Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski, but they also needed the help of the entire Government and the public.

To read the entire report, go to: http://www.evropa.bg/en/del/info-pad/events.html?eventid=1673